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"Ender Eye" redirects here. For the boss, see Ender Dragon. For item that teleports the player to where it lands, see Ender Pearl.

An eye of ender is a craftable item used to locate strongholds and activate the end portals within them.

Obtaining[]

Crafting[]

Ingredients Crafting recipe
Blaze Powder +
Ender Pearl


Usage[]

Locating strongholds[]

Eye of Ender (break)

An animation of an eye of ender shattering.

To locate strongholds (and the end portals they house):

  • Pressing use while holding an eye of ender causes it to fly approximately 12 blocks in the direction of the nearest stronghold, traveling through any blocks necessary, and leave a trail of purple particles, the same particle effect used for endermen and ender chests.
    • The eye leads to the chunk where a spiral staircase, the first room generated in the stronghold, is located.
    • The center of this entrance staircase is always exactly at the chunk coordinates 4, ~, 4, although the eye of ender leads to chunk coordinates 0, ~, 0 (the northwest corner of the chunk).
  • While over 12 blocks away from the northwest corner of the staircase chunk, the eye will travel upward to offer an easily-visible indication of the horizontal direction the player must travel.
  • When closer than 12 blocks to the northwest corner of the staircase chunk, the eye will travel downward, to indicate the player is above a stronghold and must mine downward.
  • After two or three seconds of travel, the eye floats in the air briefly, then either falls (becoming collectable again) or shatters in mid-air. The eye has a 20% chance of shattering (80% chance of surviving) per throw, therefore throwing it three times has approximately 50% overall chance to shatter the eye (0.83=51.2%).
  • The eye of ender's flying function works only in the Overworld. It does nothing in the Nether, the End, custom dimensions[verify], or in worlds with no strongholds.

Note that the eyes may point to an incorrect location if the target chunks were generated with a different biomes map in an older version or through different generation settings.[1]

Activating end portals[]

Active End Portal

An end portal activated with eyes of ender.

Once an end portal is found, the eyes of ender are required to activate it. End portals require a total of 12 eyes of ender in order to activate, though each individual frame-block has a 10% chance of containing an eye of ender when generated. Eyes can be placed in empty End portal frames by pressing use on them until the entire ring of 12 is filled, thereby activating the portal. Due to the fact that there is a 10% chance of each individual end portal frame having an eye in it, there is a one out of one trillion chance of every frame having an eye in it thereby activating the portal even if the player doesn't have any eyes of ender.

End Portal Pre-Filled Eyes
Eyes 0 1 2 3 4 5-12
Exactly 28% 38% 23% 9% 2% <1%
Or More 100% 72% 34% 11% 3% <1%

Crafting ingredient[]

Name Ingredients Crafting recipe
End Crystal Glass +
Eye of Ender +
Ghast Tear

End Crystal
Ender Chest Obsidian +
Eye of Ender

Sounds[]

Java Edition:
Eyes of ender use the Friendly Creatures sound category for entity-dependent sound events.

SoundSubtitlesSourceDescriptionResource locationTranslation keyVolumePitchAttenuation
distance
Eye of Ender falls [sound 1]Friendly CreaturesWhen an eye of ender drops or breaksentity.ender_eye.death[sound 1]subtitles.entity.ender_eye.death[sound 1]1.31.016
Eye of Ender shootsFriendly CreaturesWhen an eye of ender is thrownentity.ender_eye.launchsubtitles.entity.ender_eye.launch0.513-0.516
Eye of Ender attachesBlocksWhen an eye of ender is placed in an end portal frameblock.end_portal_frame.fillsubtitles.block.end_portal_frame.fill1.01.016
  1. a b c MC-98316 — Wrong subtitles caused by missing distinction

Bedrock Edition:

SoundSourceDescriptionResource locationVolumePitch
BlocksWhen an eye of ender breaks [sound 1]block.itemframe.break??
PlayersWhen an eye of ender is thrownrandom.bow0.50.33-0.5
BlocksWhen an eye of ender is placed in an end portal frameblock.end_portal_frame.fill0.30.9/1.0/1.1

Data values[]

ID[]

Java Edition:

ItemIdentifierFormTranslation key
Eye of Enderender_eyeItemitem.minecraft.ender_eye
EntityIdentifierTranslation key
Eye of Endereye_of_enderentity.minecraft.eye_of_ender

Bedrock Edition:

ItemIdentifierNumeric ID FormTranslation key
Eye of Enderender_eye433Itemitem.ender_eye.name
EntityIdentifierNumeric ID Translation key
Eye of Endereye_of_ender_signal70entity.eye_of_ender_signal.name

Entity data[]

The purple particles left by eyes of ender have entity data that define various properties of the entity.

Java Edition:

Main article: Entity format
  • Entity data
    • Tags common to all entities
    •  Item: The item to render as, may be absent.
      • Tags common to all items

Bedrock Edition:

See Bedrock Edition level format/Entity format.

Advancements[]

Icon Advancement In-game description Parent Actual requirements (if different) Resource location
Advancement-plain-rawEye Spy
Follow an Eye of Ender We Need to Go DeeperEnter a stronghold.story/follow_ender_eye

Video[]

Note: This video does not mention that eyes of ender can be used to craft ender chests or end crystals.

History[]

Java Edition
1.0.0Beta 1.9 Prerelease 3Eye of Ender JE1 BE1 Added eyes of ender.
Eyes of ender can be used on a portal block to repair them, but repairing them does nothing.
Beta 1.9 Prerelease 4Each eye can now be placed in a portal block or used to hone in on a stronghold. Jeb demonstrated the new uses for an eye in his livestream.[2] An end portal within a stronghold could be seen in the stream with two eyes inserted into blocks.
In older worlds with chunks generated before Beta 1.9 Prerelease 3, the eyes may mislead the player to a place where there isn't a stronghold at all. This happens because the eyes lead to where a stronghold should be based on the world seed in the current version, but before Beta 1.9 Prerelease 3 strongholds generated differently based on the seed. Therefore, if the player saved the coordinates the eye traveled to in an old world and generated a new world with the same seed, the player could travel to those same coordinates and find a stronghold.
Beta 1.9 Prerelease 6Eyes of ender no longer render like a tool in third person.
RC1The throwing sound of eyes of ender has been changed.
1.3.112w21aEyes of ender can now be used to craft ender chests.
Priest villagers would buy 2–3 eyes of ender for one emerald.
12w22aPriest villagers no longer buy eyes of ender, instead selling them for 7–10 emeralds.
1.6.41.6.3-preEyes of ender now lead to strongholds based on the structure data saved in the world file instead of calculating their approximate location via the world seed. Therefore, strongholds generated in old versions can still be found even if the distribution of strongholds is changed.
1.7.213w41aEyes of Ender now lead to the entrance of a stronghold instead of the portal room.
1.814w02aWith changes that have been made to villagers and the trading system, cleric villagers now sell eyes of ender for 7–11 emeralds, as one of their tier III trades.
1.915w41aEyes of ender are no longer sold by cleric villagers.
15w44bAn eye of ender is now used to craft an end crystal.
pre3Eyes of ender now point to the 125 new strongholds.[3]
1.1116w32aThe entity ID has been changed from EyeOfEnderSignal to eye_of_ender_signal.
1.1217w17aA new pop sound has been added when a thrown eye of ender bursts.
1.1317w47aPrior to The Flattening, this item's numeral ID was 381.
pre5The entity ID has been changed to eye_of_ender.
1.1418w43aEye of Ender JE2 BE2 The texture of eyes of ender has been changed.
1.1922w11aEyes of Ender now lead to the corner of the chunk (0, ~, 0) instead of the center (8-9, ~, 8-9).[4]
Pocket Edition
1.0.0alpha 0.17.0.1Eye of Ender JE1 BE1 Added eyes of ender.
Bedrock Edition
1.10.0beta 1.10.0.3Eye of Ender JE2 BE2 The texture of eyes of ender has been changed.
1.16.0beta 1.15.0.51The particles of eyes of ender have been changed to match Java Edition.
Legacy Console Edition
TU7CU1 1.0 Patch 1Eye of Ender JE1 BE1 Added eyes of ender.
1.90 Eye of Ender JE2 BE2 The texture of eyes of ender has been changed.
New Nintendo 3DS Edition
1.7.10Eye of Ender JE1 BE1 Added eyes of ender.


Historical images[]

Issues[]

Issues relating to "Eye of Ender" are maintained on the bug tracker. Report issues there.

Trivia[]

  • When thrown in third-person view, the eyes of ender fly out from the player's feet instead of their hand.
  • Before Java Edition 1.9, eyes of ender can be purchased from cleric villagers, which means players can find a stronghold and go to the End without accessing the Nether at all.
  • In Bedrock Edition if the player travels beyond a certain radius (roughly 740,000 blocks), eyes of ender always point to a stronghold near spawn, even though strongholds continue to generate past this limit. If one travels to this limit, they can see eyes of ender suddenly switching direction. A similar phenomenon occurs with the /locate command.

Gallery[]

Screenshots[]

In other media[]

External links[]


References[]

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